If Books Could Almost Kill
by Yumizuki
Summary: Put Kakashi, an Icha Icha Book, and an ANBU class mission together, and what do you get? Disaster. [ONESHOT]


_**A/N Hi everybody! This is just some random one-shot on what would happen if Kakashi read an Icha-Icha book while on duty. I have to give **_**Midnight Memories**_** credit for telling me that I should probably write a one-shot on this subject. Otherwise, I would've never thought of it. If you're wondering, the entire point of the story is not supposed to be descriptive. The general flavor should be terse and fragmented. That's probably why you'll see a lot of fragments.**_

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**If Books Could Almost Kill**

The border between Fire Country and Rice Country where Konohagakure and Otogakure were located, respectfully, had always been a nasty place to be—specifically the borderline region that was located 36 degrees and 17 minutes North and 61 degrees and 4 minutes East on the _Standard Atlas of Shinobi Countries_. Even ANBU, who generally took on any top S-ranked mission without a blink of an eye, were always quite wary when assigned to patrol that particular area. Unlicensed trespassing from Otogakure was constantly halted, and boundary skirmishes were frequent. The weather didn't make things better—somehow, it rained six days out of seven at the border.

Today, Captain Hatake Kakashi was patrolling with his ANBU squad of nine men. Recently, the amount of Sound-nin illegally crossing the border was increasing, and the Godaime assigned Kakashi's team to watch the border for seven months.

Seven months. Yes, _seven_ months.

Normally, seven months on even any _other_ S-ranked mission would've been fine, but seven months patrolling an extremely "radioactive" area of violence? Nah-uh. Kakashi complained to Tsunade-sama about the job, and a war had nearly broken out in the office…until Tsunade-sama threatened that she'd dock half of Kakashi's paycheck that year…and take away all his Icha-Icha Series books.

And so, Kakashi was now stuck out in the middle of nowhere, looking amongst the thick foliage for Sound-nin. It was raining. It was cold. It was a Monday. It was the first day of the mission. And the fact that he was prohibited from bringing his Icha-Icha books wasn't making the situation happier for him.

He'd stationed four ANBU comrades on the ground of the forest, three along the trees, and two in the canopy. Kakashi was one of the ninjas along the trees. The branches were forming a pitiful shelter from the wet weather, and Kakashi wasn't pleased.

Kakashi rummaged in his pack for soldier pills; his nerves were slightly jittery due to the lack of an Icha-Icha book. Plus, the Sharingan was a chakra-guzzler, and even after only about three hours of patrolling, Kakashi was already feeling the toll of dwindling chakra. It was possible for his forever-on _kekkei genkai_ to be covered with a small eye patch while wearing the porcelain ANBU mask, but he needed the Sharingan to help him for any surprise attacks.

Now, let us study the anatomy of a soldier pill. Soldier pills are round. They're small. They're the size of pencil erasers. They're easy to eat. They don't require any beverages to down. What Kakashi pulled out instead of a soldier pill, however, didn't quite fit any of those five facts.

The object was rectangular. It was flat. It was about eight-and-a-half by six. It was definitely _not_ easy to eat. If one wanted to eat it, one would need gallons of water to chew down all the paper.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious. Kakashi had pulled out his Icha-Icha Make-out Tactics, Volume Four, by the infamous Jiraiya.

Kakashi blinked several times at his luck. He must've brought the wrong pack for his ANBU work. He blinked several times again. Now that he thought of it a little more carefully, this was totally the wrong pack! This was the pack that he brought along for training Team 7. Of course the pack wouldn't have soldier pills. Little, _kawaii_ Genin had no need for soldier pills—especially Naruto. Kakashi had learned his lesson when he left his pack unattended for only five minutes. Naruto had mistaken the pills for candy and gobbled up them all up. How the rest of the day went for Team 7 is up to your imagination.

Kakashi groaned from the lack of soldier pills, but then stopped. Why was he groaning? Icha-Icha books brought his energy up even more than soldier pills…so logically…OK!

Set '_a_' as Icha-Icha book, '_b_' as soldier pill, '_c_' as regular energy level. If '_a_' is greater than '_b_', and '_b_' is greater than '_c_', obviously '_a_' is greater than '_c_'! Kakashi never thought he'd end up thanking the great mathematician who invented the Transitive Property for Shinobis.

Completely and whole-heartedly ignoring Tsunade-sama's orders, Kakashi cracked open the Icha-Icha Make-out Tactics book and began reading. He wasn't even bothered by the water that was dripping down into the mask he was wearing—as long as there was Icha-Icha, the world went round.

Well, then, every tragic hero has a tragic flaw, right? King Arthur's tragic flaw was his belief that "might makes right". Kakashi's tragic flaw was that if he started reading an Icha-Icha book, nobody could get him to look up until he was finished with the page he was reading. Normally, that action took quite a bit of _time_ until Kakashi would actually seriously listen to the annoyed person who was attempting to grasp his attention.

Based on that fact of Kakashi, I say the old adage, "Time is of an essence." One doesn't have _time _to waste when in the heat of an invasion. Especially when _time_ is wasted on Icha-Icha.

So, he didn't hear the buzzing static in his earpiece when his subordinates yelled about an enemy invasion.

So, he didn't see a fellow comrade fall, hurt from the impact of a shuriken.

So, he didn't hear the warning that his teammate yelled about a kunai.

So, he got hit by the kunai. Almost directly in the heart.

So, Hatake Kakashi, Sharingan "genius", dropped from the tree he was sitting in to the ground.

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Kakashi woke up to a very disgruntled Tsunade-sama molding green chakra over his chest and healing the torn tissues from the enemies' kunai. Shizune was close by with a worried face.

_Is she worried about me getting chewed-on by Tsunade, or is she worried about my condition?_ Kakashi thought, his chest pounding due to the pain.

Well, dear Kakashi, hard to say.

Luckily, he fainted before Tsunade could cram in any yelling. But when one faints, one has to wake up sometime.

Later, the ANBU captain once again opened his eyes to a Tsunade who glared with the eyes of a mad bull. She wordlessly dangled the Icha-Icha Make-out Tactics book in front of the wounded ANBU member's face—it had a large kunai stuck right in the spine of the book.

"So…" the fearsome Godaime hissed, throwing the book halfway across the hospital room. It nearly hit one of the other resting ANBU squad members who had been on Kakashi's border patrol team. "So…you _brought_ an Icha-Icha book and _read_ it when I told you not to?"

"It was a mistake, I swear!" Kakashi panicked, waving his hands up and down like a madman. "I brought the wrong pack for the ANBU mission! I was looking for a soldier pill!"

"You crazy fool! You're an ANBU _captain_, Kakashi! I didn't appoint you captain to read Icha-Icha! Even if you did bring the wrong pack, why the heck did you read the book!? Not only did you fail in the mission, more than half of your team landed in the hospital!"

Kakashi flinched at the entire speech. He cracked open a closed eye, and whimpered, "Uh…Wh-what happened to the rest that aren't in the hospital? Wh-what about the enemies?"

In one big breath, Tsunade said, "Your other team mates are literally camping outside this hospital and preparing to beat up you up when you're released. I suggest you get ready to fight them off. As for the enemies? All thanks to you, we have some rogue Sound-nin in Konoha. I've already sent off some more responsible ANBU to drive them away. Now, excuse me while I go find that perverted Jiraiya and beat the crap out of him for writing such stupid books."

Tsunade stomped outside, leaving a semi-relieved Kakashi to fall back on his pillows. The Godaime, however, stomped back in and barked, "And I'm docking half your pay for the entire year!" She then charged out of the infirmary once again.

Shizune entered the room, picked up the book that Tsunade had thrown, and carried it back to the dresser by Kakashi's bed.

She said, "Well…you're kind of lucky you were reading the book too. It stopped the kunai from completely embedding into your chest. We found you with the book semi-pinned to you. But you probably wouldn't have been inflicted with injuries if you hadn't done such a dumb thing."

Shizune left the room to care for other patients in the hospital. Kakashi let out a sigh of relief. Even though his pay was docked severely...

He had to thank Icha-Icha god or goddess for saving his life. Or give Jiraiya a big present for even writing the series. But now, he should probably try to sneak in some reading of Icha-Icha Violence before meeting his angry team members outside the Konoha hospital later sometime…just so he could be prepared…

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_**A/N Well, what did you think of it? I'm actually pretty excited—my VERY FIRST NON-SCHOOLWORK, NON-ROMANCE RELATED ONE-SHOT. An actual one-shot that's not overly long!! Yay!**_

_**Read and Review please! Thanks, **_**Midnight Memories**_**, for inspiring me :)**_


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